


And Fillin' Up My Senses

by thegoodthebadandthenerdy



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 1990s, Bisexual Nancy Wheeler, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/F, Moving, Older Characters, but the painting is first and foremost horrendous, jonathan has NO taste, this is actually a v sweet fic abt love and shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 06:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20869532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodthebadandthenerdy/pseuds/thegoodthebadandthenerdy
Summary: "Holy shit, you've got to get rid of this painting like, like we have to dispose of the body, Nance."-Or: the one where it's 1993, Nancy's got a new apartment, Jonathan accidentally gives her the ugliest painting known to man, but it's more than made up for in the way she and Robin love one another.





	And Fillin' Up My Senses

**Author's Note:**

> title from dolly parton's here you come again
> 
> fun fact: this is my 100th fic on ao3!!! (and exactly no one is surprised tht its rare femslash but i digress)

"It's…something," Robin offers, her arms crossed loosely of her chest. She cocks her head further to the left, her unbound hair tickling the back of her neck, and squints as if it'll make her vision clear.

Leaned against the wall in front of her is quite possibly the world's worst housewarming gift. She shouldn't be surprised that Jonathan missed the mark on Nancy's taste--or anyone's really, considering his own--but here she is, surprised.

When Nancy had told her over the phone the night before that it was an abstract piece, Robin had believed her. When she'd said it was out there, Robin had said sure. When she'd told her that he'd commissioned it specifically for her from one of his artist buddies he'd worked with in the past, Robin had popped an antacid and gone to work and tried not to think about it.

But now, standing in front of it, in her girlfriend's otherwise nice new apartment with its taupe walls and shag carpet and potential, she thinks that she'd somehow convinced herself it wasn't that bad. It is, invariably, that bad. Robin wonders belatedly if it's haunted.

(It, of course, referring to the 3 ft x 5 ft canvas layered in all manner of things that are supposed to, Jonathan had explained to Nancy excitedly, invoke good tidings. Or something like that. Robin doesn't understand how dismembered baby dolls and junk food wrappers and messy handwriting invoke good tidings, but she's always been into a different artistic discipline.)

"It's hideous," Nancy says, her tongue quick and sharp in her mouth, right to the point. "It's…shit, I don't even have the words. If that makes me a crappy journalist then so be it."

"I'm assuming it didn't come with a gift receipt," Robin jokes, and she can feel the death glare her girlfriend gives her the second it leaves her mouth. She tacks on, "Sorry," because she does feel bad, though she's not sure if it's actually her comment she feels bad for or the situation at hand. She's edging toward the latter.

"Don't, I'm just being dramatic," Nancy murmurs, her fingers tapping first at her chin, and then up the pale rouge of her cheeks. She looks tired through her delicately applied eyeliner, smudged, like she'd slept in it. Robin wishes for a moment that she'd taken the bus over last night after her shift instead of going back to her own place. 

They could've gotten a jumpstart on things, at least. Ordered dinner and try to pick something up on the rabbit ears while they sorted through the boxes for the kitchen. It would've given them both a short reprieve from work, some extra time together after two busy weeks of barely seeing one another, too.

"You're not. And it's a, uh," Robin starts, hands bunching into her sides; she's got an oversized t-shirt on, old because she knew she'd be helping move furniture, but it's so thin she wishes she had a jacket. She paws around for a good word for it, trying to make the piece seem better than it is. "It's a statement piece."

"There's a baby doll arm super-glued to it."

Can't argue with that one. "At least it isn't duct taped?"

Burying her face in her hands, Nancy says, "I'd rather have Mike's stupid mashed potato flake art," and doesn't seem to be planning on elaborating.

"What?"

"When he was six, he made macaroni art at school? And he had so much fun, he wanted to come home and make some, too, but we didn't have any macaroni, and I guess all starches are the same to a six-year-old. He dumped glue and potato flakes onto construction paper and thought it was the best thing ever. He even made Mom hang it on the fridge. We found potato flakes around the house for months." She says it all from the comfort of her palms pressed against her mouth, making it muffled and exacerbated at the same time--it makes Robin want to kiss her square on the mouth, no preamble.

"Yeah, but then you'd get ants or like, rats. Couldn't you just, I don't know, say it got stolen?"

"Because Indiana has such a thriving abstract art black market?"

"It could! Okay, or uh, here, say that when we were moving furniture, it, y'know, tragically fell victim to Steve's clumsiness. Box of knives went clean through it, real bloodbath."

A smile here. "Robbie, Steve's not even here to defend himself."

"I'll run it by him when he gets here, I'm sure he's willing to take one for the greater good."

Nancy sighs, inching to the right just enough that she can rest her head on Robin's shoulder. Her teal sweatshirt sleeves are pushed up to her elbows, the excess fabric spilling over, and without thinking, Robin wraps her fingers around her bare wrist and presses her thumb into the purple pulse point there. Nancy exhales through her nose, and Robin's sure she's closed her eyes. She leans over and presses a kiss to the top of her head, smelling the high collar of day-old hairspray--she'd definitely come straight home from work last night and crashed, then. Robin kisses her again for good measure.

"Dustin told me it looked like what he imagined one of the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park would shit out after an attack," she murmurs, voice so precise that it takes Robin a second to register the full weight of the words. When she does, she breaks into a huffing snort, and then, orange peel laughter.

"Hold on," Robin gets out. "Honey, hold on, he isn't wrong. Like, the arm, and the kinda brown paint spatter? And the, uh, the look, the ribbon?"

"I _know_," Nancy whines, her face pulling into a scrunched up, sour expression, like she's just downed something stronger than she expected.

"Holy shit, you've got to get rid of this painting like, like we have to dispose of the body, Nance."

"I'll just tell him, um," she peeks one eye open as if the painting--loosely termed--will have vanished, and when she sees it's still there, finishes, "The landlord said I can't hang it up."

The words hang between them for a minute before Robin takes them in, digests them, and replies, "Actually, that might work."

Nancy picks her head up from her shoulder, both eyes wide and bright now, and says, "It's plausible, right? He already knows my landlord is an asshole, we had lunch after the thing with the security deposit."

Robin nods, undoing her hands from her sides to gesture at the painting with chipped fingernail polish and calloused palms. "And we can just like, shove it to the back of the closet, or something."

"I'll tell him I boxed it for safekeeping."

"Even better. See, this is what I get for dating a problem solver: solved problems."

Nancy smiles, lazy and curled like smoke, and reaches for Robin's face, finding home on the baby fat of her cheeks she never lost, not even at twenty-five. "I love you," she says, fingers soft and trailing, "Move in with me when your lease is up," she adds, running her tongue over her teeth, nervous and steady. 

(She's got lipstick on them, the brown one she got a few months ago on sale, it's the same one she keeps an extra tube of at Robin's place for last minute touch ups if she stays the night and has to race off to work the next morning. The one Robin has ended up with it smudged across her mouth and jaw and neck too many times to count. Robin loves that lipstick.)

She feels her cheeks twitch, not yet a smile, but burgeoning. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Nancy nods, mouth set resolutely, ponytail shaking behind her. She looks, for a moment, like the girl Robin used to pass in the halls, her chin set and her eyes forward. She thought she loved her then, but she knows she loves her now.

She unfurls her grin, copying Nancy's position to run her thumb across her bottom lip, the scuffed rings up and down her fingers sparking beneath the uncovered bulb above them. 

Sliding her eyes over to the painting, she jokes, "We could always put it above our bed, you know," and she likes the sound of it. _Our._ Wants to keep saying it, wants to break her lease and tank her credit and pull the covers up over their heads for two weeks or two years or two lifetimes.

She wants to consolidate the things Nancy has at her place and the things she's left around Nancy's that are now packed away in one of these boxes. To leave her jacket on the hook and her keys on the bar, mix their books and records and cassettes until there's no distinction. Have Steve over for dinner and laugh until one in the morning, leaving him to crash on the couch, and them to crawl love drunk under the duvet they'll purchase together, not having to worry about calling a cab or making it home. 

"That a yes?"

Pad of her thumb pressed to Nancy's dry bottom lip, she feels the vibration of the words, and can barely get out her own soft, "Of course," for the way her throat tightens with impatience and wanting to leap. She's wanted this since she was a kid, she's wanted it with Nancy for nearly a decade now.

Nancy pulls her into a kiss. It's a seal as much as it is a handshake, both a confession and a truth. I love you and I love you and I'm going to keep loving you, if that's quite all right. It makes Robin want to put on a bad Bogart impression--of all the gin joints, of all the boys and girls, she chose me--and try to sweep Nancy up off her feet and into her arms, even if all they do is end up collapsing onto the couch. Just as long as their hands and their feet end up tangled together.

In the end, they load the painting into the back of Nancy's truck and take it to her storage locker. The same locker where, six months later, they cram all of their combined excess furniture. Robin laughs when she sees the baby doll arm waving at them as they stack old nightstands one on top of the other in front of it, and as Nancy rolls the door down when they're done, Robin makes sure to wave back at it one last time.

Nancy snorts, taking Robin's hand in her own, and they stall out before the climb back into the cab. They have a dinner to get to at the Wheeler's--it's winter break, meaning Mike's home from college alongside the rest of his gang of rugrats and Holly's got time before eighth grade starts back up again--but for a split second they've got nowhere to be but here with each other. 

With her back pressed against the passenger door and her arms wrapped around Robin's middle, Nancy peppers kisses against the crook of her girlfriend's neck, smiling at the way Robin's laugh rises high and loud and free.

"I love you," Nancy hums, smacking one last kiss to Robin's forehead. Though Robin, not to be outdone, grabs her face with cold hands and reels her back in.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @foxmulldr where i guarentee you can more likely than not talk me into writing more robin/nancy


End file.
